Mayor Eric Adams and the NYPD on Tuesday announced the city is launching a crackdown on illegal motorized scooters and mopeds after the number of complaints skyrocketed over the past three years.
In his off-topic weekly press briefing Tuesday, Adams displayed a graphic charting the patterns of street robberies and grand larcenies where the suspect used a moped to commit the crime. The graphic showed a stark increase, year over year.
In 2022, the NYPD saw 10 patterns of crime connected to mopeds, with 44 complaints. In 2023, that rose to 22 total patterns and 104 complaints, and in 2024, so far there have been 79 total patterns and 416 complaints.
The rise in these crimes comes just days after two officers were shot by a 19-year-old migrant who was living in a temporary shelter in Queens. He is expected to be arraigned later Wednesday.
The NYPD's Chief of Patrol John Chell joined "Mornings On 1" to discuss how the city plans on tamping down on the illegal vehicles and the patterns of crime associated with them.
“They’re complete menaces to society. Throughout the city everywhere, nobody likes these bikes for a variety of reasons: they’re reckless, they drive reckless, there’s crimes being committed. It’s just a huge problem for us,” Chell told NY1 anchor Pat Kiernan.